Serpent
by pyrrhicvictoly
Summary: God sits upon His new throne for about a week. Then He dies. AU, post-Winter War.


God sits upon His new throne for about a week. Then He dies.

On the first day of His divine rule, He shrouds everything in darkness. Bodies lie broken and bleeding before Him while He looks upon them impassively. Here a Shinigami, there a Hollow. They wail to Him, plead to Him. They supplicate themselves before their Lord. Some ask to be saved and others ask to die, but He does not listen. Snapping His fingers, He gestures for His servants to remove the living corpses from His sight.

On the second day, He melds the two spirit realms. There is no Soul Society; there is no Hueco Mundo. There is only everlasting night with flowers and fruit trees growing from the black sand. Dark days are coming.

On the third day, He commands His serpent, who had been watching curiously from the sidelines, to deliver the news of His usurpation to all the denizens of the primordial Underworld. The serpent is more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made, but he never refuses a direct command. And so the serpent slithers away from his Lord and heads to what used to be the Rukongai, bearing sweet persimmons laced with the despair of knowledge.

The number four has long been considered unlucky in certain cultures. It sounds too much like the word 'death', they say. God, however, enjoys puns and symbolism. He chooses the fourth day to execute certain captured members of the opposition. He makes the others watch their friends' last moments before sending them back to their cells.

On the fifth day, God creates more servants and soldiers to replace the ones lost in the war, and on the sixth He begins to move into the world of Man. Soon, all will come under His domain.

And on the seventh day, while He sits on His throne, legs crossed and hand on His chin, appearing relaxed and indulgent of His new children... While He surveys the results of His hard work and thinks, 'Very Good', that is when He dies.

-oOo-

The serpent strolls through the near-empty halls of their palace. Smiling grotesquely, he manages to frighten all the little newborn mice without even baring his fangs. Baby Arrancars squeak and scurry away at the first sight of him. He descends deeper into the catacombs; soundlessly he descends.

Here there are only gray walls, gray floors, gray bars. It is a prison made of ash, and carrying the memories of burning bones.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

He touches each bar of the empty cells he passes with the hilt of his wakizashi to announce his arrival. Seven pairs of eyes turn toward him, some listless, some defiant, all weary. They are weak from the battle, weak from witnessing the executions, and weak from days of shit-thin gruel and dusty bread.

From under his long sleeves, the serpent pulls out a package that makes their mouths water even as they recoil.

"Why?" the boy asks. His throat is raspy from constant screaming.

"Why not?" The serpent shrugs and offers him the fruit. There is a moment of hesitation before the boy takes the gift. He is the first, as befitting his name, and the others follow suit.

Grinning wildly, the serpent unlocks their doors and snaps off their collars. They flee into the gleaming black sands. They run as fast as their stiff legs will carry them; the serpent catches the ones who fall behind so that they are, all seven, together.

Then God appears.

Panicking, screaming, yelling, chaos. The ones who recovered the most reiatsu try to summon a gate to the Living World, where His reach is still weak. They fight against changed realities to bring up the portal while behind them swords clash over their fate.

It opens!

They rush through one by one. The boy holding up the vanguard shouts to the serpent to watch out. He turns back around as if he wants to do battle and sees one last smile.

"Go."

His Shinigami friends are calling for him. A girl's slim hand reaches out and catches him. "Come with us!" he cries as he slips through. The last thing the boy sees of this twisted garden is the serpent's silver hair, glinting bright as the morning star. It heralds dawn.

God turns to His serpent and asks, "Why?"

The serpent shrugs. "Why not?"

-oOo-

Every day his outside environment remains the same. Gray walls, gray floors, gray bars. He can conjure up the taste of shit-thin gruel and dusty bread without even thinking. He smiles and exclaims in surprise when the guards bring him a rare plate of glassy fish or limp vegetables - that never fails to unnerve them.

How long has he been here? Sometimes he wonders, but there's no way to keep track of the days, especially when he's so prone to sinking into his inner world for prolonged periods of time. His reiatsu has been bound and the physical manifestation of his zanpakutou is elsewhere, but that doesn't mean they can't talk inside his head. Sometimes they talk while he's awake, too, which _really_ freaks the guards out. He smiles at the thought.

_Hssss... When are we getting out of here? I want to ssslay God._

"I'm tellin' ya he's already dead."

_We killed God? How did we kill God?_

"Hmm... Gods're weak lil' creatures. We just stopped believin' an' he kicked the bucket."

_Then He isss already dead._

"Told ya so. Happy now, Shinsou?"

_Yesss, because we killed God._

"Yup. Killed 'im dead."


End file.
